Smarty Pants? What does it take? (reflection Marks of an Educated Man)

What does it mean to be an educated man or woman? Is it through the way he dress or talk? Is it through how many languages he speak. Or is it through how much people he can feel superior from and how he can manipulate him? By definition, modern society would claim that it means that a person had undertaken extensive study at school and university. To more knowledgeable people, it is known that that is not necessarily a truth. It is more than the diplomas you receive. It is more than the manipulation you do. It is more than being smart and admitting that you know a lot.

Being smart does not only encompass the cognitive aspect of life but also the moral and physical foundation of our being. To fully understand how educated a person is, it is necessary to look at the journey of how one becomes educated. We have to remember that being educated takes on its different forms, not just only classroom based or from a formal setting.

Experience is the best teacher. I believe that in a an individual's life there will be things that a person will learn and then after fully understand that they only know to little about it that they want to learn more. Experience will continue to teach us that there is so much more we need to know.

We have to admit that learning is a never ending process. To be educated is not about admitting that you know a lot that stop on this. Knowing the things necessary for you to survive in life will help you but it is the things that you continue to learn about that will help you nourish these skills. It is about continuously learning and not stopping. The world is round and it keeps on spinning. It does not stop and so does the change our world undergoes. We have to learn to keep up with these changes.

Being smart is not about making a point and arguing, it is about reasoning. There are only two persons in this world; those who fool and those who are fooled-- to fool people does not mean that you are smart and to settle on "being fooled" does not make you smart either. Mainstream thinking without prior reasoning is not a characteristic of an educated man. To be educated is to counter-flow the bad when you know it is and not just follow everyone just because everyone's doing it. Being educated is making the "right" decisions in life not "followed".

It is unfortunate how many people are smart but do not fully act like one. (unfinished)

I WILL PERSIST. I WILL WIN.

Last Thursday's lecture in DEVERED focused on a blog post by Mandino on blogspot. The blog post was all about persisting and being able to succeed on the things you want in life. (http://mandino.blogspot.com/)

Prof. Cequeña: To you, what is success?? (looks at me and expects me to answer..) Me: "Success is when your signature turns to autograph." (PANALO.)

Me. I want to be all-known at something. Before I shifted to Early Childhood Program, My course was Philippine Mass Media. Truth is I want to be a writer and a well-known one. The reason why I shifted is not because I failed my subjects but because I realized that I can be a writer without even finishing that course. I saw that finishing PHM for me was for formality's sake. At that point in my life, I was in dilemma with "what I want" and to "what I want to achieve in life". For me, getting my work published and seen by distinguished persons in the field of literature is already an achievement. When I was in grade school and high school I was already able to do that and I felt that I was able to fulfill and achieve something in life. One of my essay and also of my article was published in our schools first literary folio when I was in high school and my first short story presented to PAASCU when I was still in grade school. Having people appreciate my works and tell me that they liked it made me pursue my dream of being a writer even without finishing PHM.

Success for me is being able to do the things I want in life even when people tell me that reaching these will be impossible. The thing that touched me in the blog and lecture is being positive and persisting on doing your best even if people dampen your spirit. It's about thinking positive and reaching your goals by moving. It's about being strong in facing the many challenges--the current, and being able to counter flow. There many be countless failures along the way but this does not stop me in being successful. When I stop on persisting, it is when I face defeat from my fight to being a successful writer.

Though I have accomplished something, I have only done little and I will not stop. I will move to the greener pastures of success.

I WILL PERSIST. I WILL WIN.

Just keep walking (Reflection on A Long Walk to Forever)

What if your long lost love came knocking to your door and tells you "I love you" days before you get married?

I'm sure we all fell in love once in our lives to some one. Most of the time we keep our emotions to ourselves, suppress it and wait for it to go away. But also in most times these feelings don't just simple fly out of the window and out of our minds. They haunt us, keep our minds busy and thoughts filled of that special someone.

Once you love someone its not that easy to let of their memory. Even if years pass by, that loved person will remain a special someone inside of you. I really don't know what "Catherine" (the woman in the story) was actually feeling for Newt but what I do know is that Newt loved her as soon as he came crashing to her door. But why does the story have to even start this way?

In my life there were times I would have to say "I'd like to regret this and that...". In love, there were time when I did felt that way. Like Catherine, I was afraid to voice out how I really felt for some one because of the crashing "what if's" in my mind. WHAT IF HE DOESN'T LIKE ME. Probably Catherine felt the same way that's why she kept it all inside, waiting for it to disperse.

On the other hand, Newt wasn't able to keep his feelings all to himself. Knowing that Catherine was about to get married in a week, he took a chance on letting Catherine know on how she really felt.

"One foot in front of the other--through leaves, over bridges--"

“Let’s take chances”. Basically, when Newt went back home to talk to Catherine and ask her if she could take a walk with him, he was taking chance if Catherine would do so. Even when he told her that he loved her, he was taking chance that Catherine would tell him that she loves him too. It’s about taking chances of the possibilities in life through fallen times (as represented by trees) and “what could be at the other side” (as represented by the bridges).

It's never too late on saying how you really feel for the person you really love. It's about taking that "one chance" in life and knowing that no matter what comes after it is forever. If it doesn't end up the way you want things to be at least you did your best and if does, then good for you.

A letter to you and me (Reflection to Three Letters from Teddy)

"We will all be teachers." In a matter of time, we'll graduate and practice our profession. We will all be in schools teaching the subjects we once hated, giving assignments to our students and putting "X marks the spot" on papers now and then. We'll learn to hate and love our students in every other way.

Three letters from teddy was a story all about a student keeping in touch with his grade five teacher. For those who have read it, there are a number of ways where we have been touched by the story--whether as an insensitive educator at times or a student who just needs care all along.

We all have a special teacher in all of us--a teacher who have inspired us every other way. Whether it be something they said, how they helped you or made you feel special and understood.

The part in the story where I am most touched is when Teddy gave his gifts to Mrs Thompson--the half full bottle of perfume, the bracelet with incomplete stones on it. It was the turnign point of the whole story. It was the part where Mrs. Thompson realized that she was being insensitive to what Teddy really needs.

Some days I feel like Mrs. Thompson--unknowingly making my own favorites when I do demo teaching in classes, ignoring the quiet children on the corner of the room and making favorites on the "Bibbo" and cute kids. Reading the story it made me realize that we need to be sensitive to how our students might be feeling. Sometimes there is a story behind a child's failure in class. It's up to us teacher to look at this issues and be sensitive to their needs.

As a future educator, I want to be like Mrs. Thompson and make an impact to my future students not only academically but also in their lives. I want to be able to inspire them, to make them realize that they need to make the best out of their lives.

Untitled (Poem)

Moonlight stream memories through the sculptured jalousies,

Casting shadows of what was once

Happy memories of laughter… life…

and love

But shadows are but shadows… unreal… an image

that disappears as Stygian mists enshroud

the beams of light in exchange for their rays

of cold darkness;

to provide respite from painful pats by their

shadow… of nothingness, now.

Still life does not seek the moonlight nor does she seek the blankets of the midnight.

It awaits the sun… the truth.

The Kiss

Here is "The Kiss" a painting by Gustav Klimt. I so fell in love seeing this when we discussed about Ekphrasis in our HUMAART class last year. We all have out own interpretations of what is the story behind this wonderful masterpiece. Below is a short story interpretation of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and under it is my own interpretation of both the story and the painting through a very short essay. ENJOY!

"Short Story on a Painting of Gustav Klimt"
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
(1976)

They are kneeling upright on a flowered bed
He
has just caught her there
and holds her still
Her gown
has slipped down
off her shoulder
He has an urgent hunger
His dark head
bends to hers
hungrily
And the woman the woman
turns her tangerine lips from his
one hand like the head of a dead swan
draped down over
his heavy neck
the fingers
strangely crimped
tightly together
her other arm doubled up
against her tight breast
her hand a languid claw
clutching his hand
which would turn her mouth
to his
her long dress made
of multicolored blossoms
quilted on gold
her Titian hair
with blue stars in it
And his gold
harlequin robe
checkered with
dark squares
Gold garlands
stream down over
her bare calves &
tensed feet
Nearby there must be
a jeweled tree
with glass leaves aglitter
in the gold air
It must be
morning
in a faraway place somewhere
They
are silent together
as in a flowered field
upon the summer couch
which must be hers
And he holds her still
so passionately
holds her head to his
so gently so insistently
to make her turn
her lips to his
Her eyes are closed
like folded petals
She
will not open
He
is not the One

When we kiss someone, we are enveloped in a thousand of fantasies. There is no time. There is no space in between. All there is is the feel of each other. All there is is an emotion—engulfed. Like a painting, there are no words said. All there is are things to be captured by our senses.

Love is love. Where love is there is spring. And where spring is, there is the slow disintegration of life around you—fall comes. Later in life you feel no more [love] and you walk away the bed of flowers you both once laid on.

The fundamental nature of love is represented with a kiss. Like the kiss of the man in the painting (faceless and unidentifiable), we get lost when we are in love. We give in to the feel of love. When we fall in love, most of the time we are not ourselves. We do not know who we are same as what we do. If I were to interpret the poem given, it as if the man is deeply in love with the woman. The woman as seen on the other hand looks as if she refuses to be smothered by the kiss of her lover but is aloof by it. He is a picture of a love so insistent while she, an image of a woman of warmth and a term called “pakipot”. With these characteristics they make an ideal couple in harmony with everything else in the picture. But it seems like there is a problem with the woman in the picture and in the poem. While the man is deeply in love with the woman, the woman is just a picture in remote—IN DISTANT WITH THE FEELING OF LOVE.

Is she really in love with him or is she just only in for the feel and sensation that love brings?

The Journey: Finding My TRUE Educational Philosophy

(Repost from my forgotten Multiply account Aug 22, '09)

Truth is “it’s not that easy to make your own educational philosophy”. I had been browsing all over the net, scouting for any idea on how I think I can make my own philosophy in teaching. I have read about tons of reflective blogs and journals telling their own tales of how difficult it is to make one. As a student taking up an early childhood in education degree, one can’t help but ask his or her true purpose on why he or she took a path on a start of a “possible teaching career”. I mean ever since I was young, I never had in mind the idea that I would be even a teacher, it was only later that I realized that I wanted it so badly. Perhaps answering my purpose on why I have taken up this path can shed some light on what my aim is as a teacher and what my educational philosophy is.

I had taken up a degree first on mass media; Philippine in Mass Media to be exact. In one of my English Communication course, I had a chance to write an essay about something I REALLY want to discuss. It was like everything under the sun can be talked about. It was a final essay paper to complete a portfolio (much like this one). Picking on a subject, I thought it would be easy for me since we were allowed to make a choice. At the end, it as if I had fallen into discussing the topic about how media affects children. Having to (supposed to) have focused on media, I have taken instead my whole essay into an area I was not interested my whole life--CHILDREN. Of course everyone knew the importance of children, how they are said to be the future of our country and all those colorful set of clichés found on the net—those are true. I began on setting my course of researching about children since then on. Just to finish my first story, when I was able to pass my final essay paper on how media affects children it was as if it turned to a paper about how children are important in our society. Making that classic mistake of morphing my true objective in writing that paper, I saw the paper as a failure in writing (well not actually in class) but also on the other hand as another way of finally knowing what I really want to do—TO TEACH. Having to know how important children are, I understood the importance of children’s formation especially in their early years; thus, resulting to me having to shift college and course.

Knowing now the reason and purpose why I shifted can perhaps now help me form my own educational philosophy. My purpose is to help children make their full potential. And how can I do this? Through education.

In my early weeks of being part of the whole early childhood program, various lectures from different Major courses (such as ECEDCHD, ECEDSPD, ECEDFND and ECEDLAN) have summed up the importance of school. “Success in school=Success in life”. Perhaps this is what early childhood education really is all about. While it is for children their first time to enter in school, at this time, we are introducing them various possibilities of successes in their life. But as teachers, what are the different educational philosophies that do you think we can consider in helping make success in our kids’ life possible?

As we’ve discussed weeks ahead (or let’s just say based on what I’ve understood in class), There are three streams of educational ideology—these are namely Romanticism, cultural transmission and progressivism. If I was to choose, I would probably be the teacher who would follow a progressivism educational ideology. Besides from the child developing higher thinking skills through an experimental environment, the child has the opportunity to explore his surroundings and by having the opportunity means the ability to choose. Thus, everything around a child that is not forced can be interesting. I believe that making things interesting for a child enforces the idea that whatever he or she is doing is fun. As a result, the child enjoys the idea that learning can fun. I do think that this should be the way lessons especially in an early childhood setting schools are ought to be taught. If I was to be a teacher in this kind of setting, I would enforce an environment that children won’t be afraid to ask questions not only to the teachers but also to each and everyone around them. In a true community, the members of the group strive to work toward a greater goal, whatever that may be—to do together what is necessary for the betterment or sustainability of the community. Members of a community find success when they treat each other as equals; communities succeed because each member plays more than one role within the community, allowing for multiple modes of interaction and the sharing of knowledge and ability when needed. In this view, each member of the community (students) is both a learner and teacher. Each member has an opportunity to share his/her strengths, as well as the opportunity to learn, whereas in the factory, the product, once produced, is likely to be unchangeable without being broken.

I believe that the most salient and rich learning experiences come from cooperative discovery and challenging subject matter. I see students as capable of much, much more than rote memorization and repetition. I see the role of the teacher as guide, not god. I believe that if we treat the school as a community (and follow through on that statement) we will create lifelong learners, cooperative workers, competent teachers, and critical thinkers willing to adapt to a changing world for the betterment of the larger community.

I don’t want to be part of a system wherein the supposed mission of a school, “To create a learning community,” is a ruse to cover the actual goal, which is to fit each student to the same mold. Every student is different, and those differences should be respected. An education should not be applied to you as though you were the product of a machine; that’s disenfranchisement of your right to an education.